Owls Baseball Season Ends In Mid-Atlantic District Championship

The Prince George's Community College baseball season came to a close on Friday, May 19^th in the Mid-Atlantic District Championship after falling to Paul D. Camp in two games, 11-3 and 25-10. Friday's appearance marked the first time the Owls had made it to Districts since the 2019 season which came after capturing their third consecutive Region 20 DIII Championship. Now having won the Region for the first time in 4 years as well, the Owls appear to be back on track under the leadership of coach Jordan Martinez who wrapped up his first year as a college head coach.

Prince George's scored first in both games against the Hurricanes and held a 2-run lead in the fourth inning of game one after Elijah Tyler hit a triple to center which sent Hector Vargas across the plate and Elias Nurideen followed up with a sacrifice fly to send Tyler home and put the Owls up, 3-1. Unfortunately for the Owls, the Hurricanes responded with 2 runs themselves in the bottom half of the inning and then added 5 more in the very next inning to take control, 8-3. Prince George's wasn't able to produce much offensively over the final innings while Camp tacked on three more runs to hand the Owls an 11-3 game one loss which set up a win or go home scenario for game two.

Needing a victory to force a game three on Saturday, the Owls started out strong once again with another Tyler RBI which sent Vargas across the plate to put Prince George's up early, 1-0 to open the first inning. Camp would again waste no time taking the lead with 2 runs themselves in the second and then had an explosive run over a 5-inning stretch during which the Hurricanes outscored Prince George's 23-3, which included a 9-run fourth inning, and sent the Owls into the final inning trailing 25-4. The Owls refused to go down without a fight as they pieced together 6 runs off of 5 hits during the final half inning before being retired for the last out and sealing the team's 25-10 defeat.

The win by Camp advanced the Hurricanes to the NJCAA Division III World Series which will be played in Greeneville, TN from May 27-May 31/June1.

Friday's losses for the Owls marked the final time sophomores would wear a Prince George's uniform, nine of which were with the program for two seasons. Among them was Hector Vargas, Tevin Anderson, Elias Nurideen, Adonis Mesa, Jose Alvarez, Elijah Tyler, Isándel Ramos, Jose Acevedo, and Santiago Jimenez.

Despite the loss, coach Martinez was proud of his team for their fight until the very end and for all that they accomplished during the spring in an up-and-down season. Martinez extended his appreciation to all of the returning sophomores who welcomed him in as the team's new head coach last summer and is looking forward to year two with a full year of recruitment to reload for next spring.